What is more, the decline is concurrent with drops in both the rates of teen pregnancy and abortion. Only four percent of girls 15 to 19 were pregnant as of 2013 and just one in every 100 girls had an abortion that same year.
Pew notes one major change since the Baby Boom. While most teen moms in the '50s and '60s were married, the rising age of first marriage means that most teen moms today are not married. About 90 percent of teen births today are to unwedded mothers; in 1960, 85 percent were to married mothers.
All of these numbers only get us part of the way to an explanation for declining teen childbearing. Pew researchers Gretchen Livingston and Deja Thomas offered several ideas....
